Consistency Trumps Intensity

You are so ready to see results – you can already see yourself rocking that teeny black bikini you’ve been dying to wear for months.

It took me a while to learn how to rock a bikini bod year round but it’s second nature now and it’s the balance I strive for my clients to achieve too

Monday comes and you are so incredibly gung-ho to get started. You’ve got your meals prepped and packed (even though the thought of eating fish and broccoli twice in a day is gag-inducing) and you’ve got the cutest outfit ready to rock the gym in.

But you don’t just ease into this new plan…oh no.

You jump in head-first and start utilizing every single dieting strategy you’ve ever heard of all at once. You add lemon to your water to ‘detoxify’ yourself in the morning. You’re sprinkling cayenne on everything to rev up that metabolism and instead of doing one workout….you do one insanely long workout followed by some extra abs and HIIT later on in the evening.

More exercise = more calories burned right!?

So you continue with this cycle of eating food you hate and exercising for hours a day for a week or so.

You’re tired, cranky, would kill for some carbs or a meal you actually enjoyed but you also have this odd sense of pride.

Sure, you’re miserable. BUT you feel somehow superior to the non-meal-prepping, only workout 3 times a week people.

You? You are dedicated.

Who cares about the other aspects of your life if you’ve got your fitness in check

Ya you have little to no social life (who needs friends when you have the gym anyways – right?) and the friends you do have left simply don’t understand that you need to know the nutrition info for the restaurant you’re going to that night so you can hoard all your calories to the end of the day.

What’s a little dizziness if it means you can have a grilled chicken burger? Obviously you’d get the burger without any cheese or mayo and with a side salad, dressing on the side. God help that waitress if the dressing isn’t on the side!

You’re seeing some progress – your clothes are a bit looser and the scale is moving down. Score!

Who cares that you can’t stay up past 8pm because you are completely and totally exhausted. You may be a little colder than normal too because your body just can’t keep up with the demands you’re placing on it but screw it, the scale is going down and that’s all that matters – right?

Now you’re starting to notice that your progress in the gym is slowing down. Weights that you could previously use suddenly feel impossibly heavy. That’s ok though. Lower the weight and just do more reps and add in some extra time on the treadmill for good measure.

You find yourself drawn to the fitness memes that flood the internet. They’ve become your mantras.

Ya! Screw it if your body is trying to tell you to take it easy

I am so completely ashamed that I once wrote that on one of my cupboard doors. My how things change and how people grow.

You know – sleep, work, family time – that doesn’t factor into your day the same way exercise does

After a few weeks of this ‘hardcore’ all-or-nothing lifestyle….you break.

You are so tired, so overworked, miss your social life and you are exhausted and fed up with constantly feeling hungry and deprived.

You don’t just slow down with the healthy lifestyle either. Oh no. That shit goes right out the window and you spend the next week eating anything and everything you craved during those miserable weeks where you subsisted on veggies and the leanest of lean protein.

You re-gain all the weight you lost and you’re now insanely bloated as well which only adds to the frustration. The gym becomes a distant memory and you conclude that it’s just too hard so you stop trying until the next fad catches your attention.

Rinse and repeat.

Does this resonate with you?

I know it does even with me personally. I was totally that girl who was either all in – would turn down even the smallest bite of unhealthy food – or I was on the outs with a healthy lifestyle and was shoveling cereal in my face faster than I could handle it.

Whatever happened to having middle ground? To having lasting results? To finding something sustainable?

Ya, it’s not as sexy to have slower, more realistic weight loss buuuut having results that last long term – that’s pretty hot if you ask me.

It’s something I’m always telling my clients, don’t focus on short term results but instead focus on creating habits you can see yourself sticking to long term.

I aim to teach strategies that get visible results quickly – but more importantly, I want to show people how to transition from using certain strategies (like carb cycling which I’m a huge fan of) to being able to then maintain and thrive once they’ve reached their initial goals.

Because really, what’s the point in getting results quickly if you can’t maintain them? Or you get results but you are miserable!

Short term, people think that physical results – what they see in the mirror – is all that matters. Then you realize you need energy to get through your day and that you actually need to enjoy the food you’re eating on a daily basis.

So please, if you’re thinking of starting a new diet/exercise program keep these things in mind. It may seem more ‘hardcore’ to go all in all at once but ask yourself this:

1). Can I maintain this long term?

2). Do I have a strategy if progress stalls?

If you throw everything you’ve got right from the get-go, what do you do when you plateau? You can’t cut your calories even more and you sure as heck can’t add more exercise on top of an already insanely demanding workout schedule.

Consistency trumps intensity

Stop trying to fix something in a week when you’ve been dealing with the issue for years.

Yes it’s going to take time. Yes it’s going to take effort. And hell yes it’s going to be worth it if you do it correctly.

If you’d like to work together you can checkout the programs I offer by visiting my training website HERE. Or if you’d just like some advice, drop me an email: chelsey@powerhousefitfoodie.com